Leo Roth: Power of soccer knows no boundaries

9:57 PM,
Feb. 8, 2014

Nick Pugliese, left, receives his medal for helping Ferozi FC win the Kabul Cup last April in Kabul, Afghanistan.

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Nick Pugliese was a stranger in a strange land. An American in Kabul, Afghanistan.

A recent college graduate employed by a powerful telecommunications company in a war-torn dangerous part of the world. Working and living behind highly secured walls, told where he could eat, socialize and when to be home at night.

Feeling "boxed in" and regretting that he would spend a year of his life in this ancient, wondrous land and never having gotten to truly experience it. Told he could no longer play soccer, the game he holds dear and his one outlet, by his company's security detail because it was too ...